Tag Archives: Fugazi

Jay Ryan is a respected and prolific screenprint poster artist who is based in Chicago, Illinois. He has been making screenprinted concert posters for some of the world’s greatest bands and musicians and festivals for over 20 years and runs his own print shop called the Bird Machine. He has served as vice-president of the American Poster Institute and hailed as a cultural hero by Time Out Chicago. Akashic Books has just published No One Told Me Not to Do This, the third volume of Ryan’s work, annotating and compiling selected screenprints created between 2009 and 2015. I first obtained one of Ryan’s prints when I went to see Fugazi, Shellac, and Blonde Redhead play the Congress Theatre in Chicago on Friday May 8, 1998 and collected two more of his prints on subsequent trips to the city in 2001 and 2006. I’m a fan; we arranged to chat about his work a couple of weeks ago. Sponsored by the Bookshelf, Pizza Trokadero, and Planet Bean Coffee.

Fake Limbs are a noisy rock band who hail from the west side of Chicago, Illinois. Known for creating a kind of “social justice street rock” that’s exhilarating and outspoken, the band formed in 2011 and have released three acclaimed full-length albums, including 2016’s Matronly, which is out now via Don Giovanni Records. Fake Limbs have been on the road a bunch of late and, before their recent show at the Silver Dollar in Toronto, lead singer Stephen Sowley and I ate some pizza at Fresca, just west of College and Spadina, and then we talked about his time in Toronto and tour managing, Jenny Hval, Screaming Females don’t really need roadies, driving and sleeping in cars and planes, Brendan Fraser and The Mummy, Danny Brown’s leather sleep mask, flight recliners, Ted, Colin Atrophy’s Slice Harvester, Fresca Pizza in Toronto, Chicago and Montreal, living in upstate New York, Second City and comedy, The Blues Brothers, not from Chicago, the Cubs’ World Series win, loser town, a goat and Steve Bartman, baseball points, a momentary Sowley curse, loving the Cubs and Wrigley Field and Toronto Blue Jays fans, so Grohl, working at Electrical Audio with Steve Albini, studio managing, encountering Iggy and the Stooges within weeks of taking a job at EA, the Breeders, working at Reckless Records, cashing Albini out on his first day at RR, lending Iggy $40, going to see Gimme Danger on election night, how Jim Jarmusch’s film basically overlooked the last Stooges record The Weirdness, which Albini engineered, election night predictions, phones on and off in the movie theatre, no surprise, voter participation, echo chambers, the shock, feeling ill- and misinformed about class-based anger, how Trump did everything he possibly could to willfully lose this election, people steeling themselves for the next four years, people who protest, The Dark Knight Rises, the left and exclusion and intersectionality, Michael Moore’s Facebook Live report during a recent protest in New York City, rationale, the ‘this will be good for comedy/punk rock’ stupidity, hoping for empathy, talking about Fake Limbs and their album Matronly, Black Lives Matter and “An Inconvenience,” Trump’s cabinet, what is punk, dinner with Grace Ambrose, Phleg Camp, the Jesus Lizard, Carla Bozulich, influence projection, idiots, Don Giovanni Records, Moor Mother’s Fetish Bones, more hugs, Bandcamp and Jes Skolnik, the Fugazi Live Archive, the song “Lil Bit,” and that was all from Fresca.

On July 16, 2016, Alan Vega died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 78. In a statement, Vega’s family said, “With profound sadness and a stillness that only news like this can bring, we regret to inform you that the great artist and creative force, Alan Vega has passed away. Alan was not only relentlessly creative, writing music and painting until the end, he was also startlingly unique. Along with Martin Rev, in the early 1970s, they formed the two person avant band known as Suicide. Almost immediately, their incredible and unclassifiable music went against every possible grain. Their confrontational live performances, light-years before ‘Punk Rock,’ are the stuff of legend. Their first, self-titled album is one of the single most challenging and noteworthy achievements in American music. Alan Vega was the quintessential artist on every imaginable level. His entire life was devoted to outputting what his vision commanded of him.” It was a fitting encapsulation of a man whose work and attitude influenced many of the most significant artists in underground and mainstream music, from every generation really. This episode features personal reflections and first and second hand anecdotes about Vega and Suicide by fans like Steve Albini of Shellac of North America, Jehnny Beth of Savages, Brendan Canty of Fugazi, Kid Millions of Oneida (a.k.a. John Colpitts of Man Forever), Robyn Phillips of Vallens, Priya Thomas, and Mike Watt of the Minutemen.